BEETHOVEN. Symphony No. 7 In A major, Op. 92. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlos Kleiber. DG 2530 706 (£.3•59). Selected comparisons:

NYPO, Toscanini (r. 1936) (4/54) (12/75) (R) (Z) AT153 Concertgebouw, E. Kleiber (4/51) (4/70) (R) ECS555

VPO, Schmidt-lsserstedt (5/70) SXL6447

Though Carlos Kleiber's glowing performance of the Fifth Symphony (2530 526, 6/75) appears to have divided opinion in Germany, it was generally thought a glorious reading by English critics. His Seventh, by contrast, is much more obviously controversial, destined, I suspect, to divide opinion on both sides of the Channel.

As an interpretation it is closely modelled— as far as the end of the second movement, at least—on his father's fine reading of the work, now on Decca Eclipse. (There is even the same controversial pizzicato end to the Allegretto, rather limply done in the new performance.) In general style and voltage, though, the performance emulates the classic Toscanini set of 1936 now on RCA Victrola. Not an ounce of excess tone is left on the Vienna Philharmonic sound. Gone is the distinctive, middle-European texturing of Schmidt-Isserstedt's beautifully played (and superbly grammatical) Decca reading. Even the recording seems selfconsciously spare and monochromatic, as though it too was searching out the Toscanini precedent.

Of the four movements, the finale, it must be admitted, •-ik a tour de force. Only one thing strikes me as being incongruous here and that is Carlos Kleiber's odd slackening of the tension whenever the woodwinds pick up the skipping second subject; a slackening based, it seems, on the curious assumption that there is a melody in the cellos at this point. The Scherzo is also extremely compelling, the whole thing taken very quickly (as quickly as in Karajan's 1953 recording—HMV ® SLS5053, 5/76, part of the complete Philharmonia cycle) though with a slowish Trio, unnuanced in the violin line (as marked), which makes Carlos

Kleiber's reading considerably less expressive at this point than either Toscanini's or Erich Kleiber's.

But then how lyrical should the Seventh Symphony be ? It is, as Carlos Kleiber rightly divines, a spare, athletic work; but is it not vibrant too, a partially lyrical celebration of the spirit of Dionysus? In the Symphony's opening paragraph Kleiber seems to acknowledge this; for in spite of what is, throughout, excessively pale oboe tone (even by Viennese standards), the sostenuto opening and eager staccato continuation are both beautifully judged, tense and expressive. But the movement's main vivace is a good deal less mettlesome than either Toscanini's or the elder Kleiber's: always a degree or two more literal. It has what I can only describe as a curiously low rhythmic trajectory, almost at times a 2/4 metre rather than a 6/8. What's more, the Viennese players (and the first violins especially) are either forbidden, or not much inclined, to fill out the notes above the stave. The singing crescendo in bar 119, glorious under Toscanini (and Karajan in both his 1953 version and on DG 138 806, 2/63), or the soft downward sweep of tone and the crescendo through the high B flats in bars 163 and 164 in the final gathering before the double bar: these things barely register under Carlos Kleiber's direction. And the slow movement, though more or less a carbon copy of his father's reading—which is provokingly swift but beautifully articulated and sung—this, too, is less lyrically communicated, the Viennese players oddly inhibited alongside their Dutch counterparts in the 1951 recording.

It is details like this—not to mention Kleiber's failure just after the first movement wind fermata (bar 300) to make either oboist or strings really register the haunting, eerie drop into D minor (an insight gloriously registered on all the above recordings)—that lead me to question some of the performance's credentials. Clearly, though, this is a Seventh to be acquired and argued over. You may not find it wholly agreeable, or wholly convincing, but it does at times bring us unnervingly close to the essential spirit of this great work, a rare enough phenomenon in all conscience. Apart from some curtailment in the Scherzo, there is a full clutch of repeats. R.O.